Carving Pumpkins

Happy Halloween!  Most years, hubs and I don't really do much for Halloween (next year, when we have the baby to dress up, it's ON like DONKEY KONG) but I do have a Halloween layout for you today!  I think these pictures are from October of 2004?

Click to embiggen and sorry for the glare on the photo.  I was already into Stampin' Up! by this time, if you notice that the pumpkin I carved matches one of the stamped faces pretty well :)  The smallest pumpkin is a pup-kin with a dog face for Chewie, my sweet furbaby that I had before I got married.  I actually made this layout last year but never posted it to the blog (I have several layouts that haven't been shared yet, whee!).  I have NO idea what made me think of this color combo, but I think it works:

Long-retired Gable Green along with still-current Tempting Turquoise, Pumpkin Pie, and of course Basic Black.  I only did one strip of Pumpkin Pie DSP across the layout because I figured that I had enough orange in the pictures with all the pumpkins to get the Halloween point across.

Have a spooktacular day, y'all!

Supplies, mostly SU!
Stamps:  Carved & Candlelit
Ink:  Gable Green, Basic Black
Paper:  Gable Green, Basic Black, Tempting Turquoise, Ghostly Greetings DSP
Accessories:  Sizzix alphabet

Friday Flashback: Just Between Fiends

Happy Friday!  I've got a totally seasonally-appropriate stamp set for today's Flashback, but just one problem--I'm absolutely SURE I've used Just Between Fiends before, but I can't find any pictures of it either in my personal archives or on my Splitcoast gallery.  Arrgh!  Anyway, Just Between Fiends goes along with Best Fiends (probably my favorite Halloween stamp set ever) and is a set of four sentiments.  For today's card, I picked the sentiment I was pretty sure I hadn't used yet (never dreaming I would have no photographic evidence for having used the other three either).  So here it is:

I think I'll send this to my sister-in-law, who loves purple and also frogs because she went to Texas Christian University.  Usually I color in Agnes with orange/red hair and use the purple for her outfit, but I decided this time Agnes has gotten into the wild hair color trend and has purple hair.  I think it would be fun to dye my hair some wild color, but let's be honest, I'm far too lazy to keep up with hair dye.

My colors are courtesy of Create with Connie and Mary:

Everything I used is Stampin' Up!, but the stamps retired ten years ago (eek!) and I'm not sure how old the Cast-a-Spell DSP is but it's pretty old too.  But that DSP has exactly these challenge colors with the only addition of Basic Black so it couldn't be any more perfect for this challenge.

I also used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I squished it to be a horizontal card instead of vertical, just because my stamps were so large they wouldn't fit on a standard A2 card otherwise.  I suppose I could have done a 5x7 card but honestly that didn't even occur to me until just this minute.

This also fits in with the SUO Challenges theme of Fall Fun, so I'll enter over there as well.

Okay kids, I'm off to take my sweet little doglets for a walk since the weather looks really nice today and a walk would be good for me too.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Just Between Fiends, Best Fiends
Ink: Basic Black, Perfect Plum, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Smoky Slate, Soft Suede, Soft Sky
Paper:  Perfect Plum, Thick Whisper White, Cast-a-Spell DSP
Accessories:  retired Ovals Framelits, Dimensionals

Make Way for Ducklings

Hey, kids, how's it going?  I've got a quick card for you today thanks to the Global Design Project theme challenge this week:

When the hubs and I were in the Boston area earlier this month, we met up with my sweet friend Vicki who gave me a baby gift that included the book Make Way for Ducklings and a stuffed animal duckling.  For Baby Sodapop, obviously.  So I wanted to make her a duckling thank you card, and happily for me I own Barnyard Babies :)

I kept it really simple on this one, just stamping the duckling several times and doing some quick (and slightly messy, it's a stylistic choice) watercoloring.  I'd thought about putting a button on the end of the sentiment banner, but the idea of staples occurred to me so I did that instead and I think this is the first time I've ever done staples on a card.  The whole card took me like maybe 15 minutes.  Now I just need to get it out in the mail!

Okay, kids.  This is turning into Baking Week so I have cupcakes to frost and some cookies to make.  Because that's a balanced diet.  I kid!  I'm taking the cupcakes to a thing tonight and the cookies are going to hubs' work tomorrow.  Not saying I won't taste test anything though...

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Barnyard Babies, One Big Meaning
Ink:  Basic Black, So Saffron, Peekaboo Peach, Crumb Cake
Paper:  So Saffron, Pool Party, Thick Whisper White, Peekaboo Peach DSP
Accessories:  Staples

Little Acorns for the Nachos

Well, I thought I was going to have technical difficulties keep me from writing this post on time but luckily I resolved them (Does banging the mouse on the desk count as solving a problem?  'Cause it seemed to work this time...).  And just in time to share this week's Nacho Average Color Challenge!

I'm still in the mindset of fall-type cards, even though these might not look like your typical fall colors.  So I broke out my brand new Acorny Thank You stamp set and acorn punch, and I made this:

I added some Chocolate Chip for the "bodies" of the acorns.  This is more on the CAS side for me but I just couldn't get the idea out of my head :)  I used some retired Candy Dots but that's because I haven't gotten the new whatchacallits that replace the Candy Dots, I only have those in the metallic colors so far.

Anyway, go check out the Nacho blog for some more color challenge goodness and hit up the Linky tool on the bottom to share your own creation.  And now I'm off to go get my dental crown installed...

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Acorny Thank You, Gorgeous Grunge
Ink: Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, Pool Party
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Pool Party
Accessories:  Acorn builder punch, Dimensionals, Subtles & Neutrals Candy Dots (retired)

Giant Pandas

Hooray for Scrappy Monday!  I've been doing some work in my craft cave lately and I've got a few new scrapbook pages done, plus another layout that's awaiting title and journaling.  So here's one I finished last week:

Pics are of course from our 2010 China trip with Bennet and Missy (see 'em all here).  Everything about this layout came together really fast except for the title...

And it doesn't even look complicated, does it?  I always use the same lettering template and alphabet stamps for my China layouts, but I have the lettering template in three sizes and the first one I cut out just ended up being too big for the page, so I cut out a smaller version and then I decided to do an uppercase P instead of all lowercase and yep, the title took forever.

The color combo, on the other hand, was almost instantaneous, which is nice :)  I've done layouts before with Baja Breeze, Garden Green, and Smoky Slate, which I really like together, but this time I traded out the gray for black and Cameo Coral.  I have patterned paper with bamboo on it, what could be more perfect for a panda page?  So yep, there you have it.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, mostly SU!
Stamps:  Rough Type
Ink:  Basic Black
Paper:  Baja Breeze (textured), Garden Green, Ginger Blossom DSP
Accessories:  lettering template

Hello Fall

Okay, so I am enjoying being back in my craft cave...I made a card yesterday and got started on a new scrapbook layout which makes me happy :)  So here's my card for today:

Still experimenting to find the best place to use my iPhone to take pictures, so far ain't nothin' looking too good.  This was on my craft table under my Ott Light and still not a good pic.  Anyway, today's card ended up being a kind of weird combination of clean lines with some grungier elements...I wanted some way to use the colors on my white card base and I'm not sure I chose the right thing.   But I do love the colors, which I got from Cupcake Inspirations:

Red and green might immediately say Christmas to you instead of fall, but what can I say, I'm a rebel :)  I used sponges to ink up the leaf stamp with Cherry Cobbler and Garden Green ink, which turned out looking pretty cool if I say so myself.  Might have to try that with a few fall-y color combos.

The sketch is from Global Design Project:

I substituted the leaf for the square element, and my greeting is larger than shown in the sketch, but I have every element of the sketch on my card.

Finally, the Paper Players' CAS challenge is perfect for this time of year:

I think fall cards are my very favorite type to make.  I know lots of people with fall birthdays and I just love all the brightly colored leaves and cooler weather and yeah, it's my favorite time of year.  Almost makes up for the Virginia heat and humidity trying to kill me for four or five months of the year :p

Okay kids, I have an errand to run and then a date with a scrapbook page.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Vintage Leaves, Timeless Textures
Ink:  Blushing Bride, Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Blushing Bride, Cherry Cobbler DSP
Accessories:  Leaflets Framelits, Hello You Thinlits, Dimensionals

Nachos: Getting Sketchy

Mornin', y'all!  Hey, lookit that, two days of blog posts in a row.  And I'm back with the Nacho Average Challenges team and check out this awesome sketch!

Nice and simple, just what I need when I'm still getting back in the stamping groove.  Last week the hubs and I spent several days gallivanting around New England, and one evening we had dinner with a sweet friend of mine and her husband so I made this for her:

I don't have the paisley DSP that's in the holiday catalog, but that doesn't mean I can't use it for color-iffic inspiration!  I chose Night of Navy, Rich Razzleberry (my friend loves purple, so that seemed appropriate), a bit of Soft Suede and some metallic copper to finish it off.  The sentiment is embossed with copper EP, and check out this view of the copper foil paper:

SHINY.  I added a white panel on the inside of the card too, also with the two rounded corners, but sponged with some Rich Razzleberry instead of Night of Navy like on the card front.  I chose leaves for this card because the main reason we went driving all through New England was to see the fall foliage (and did we ever).  So there you have it!

Hope you join along with this awesome sketch challenge on the Nacho blog.  Until next time, cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Vintage Leaves, One Big Meaning
Ink:  Night of Navy, Rich Razzleberry, Soft Suede, Versamark
Paper:  Night of Navy, Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, Copper Foil
Accessories:  Corner rounder punch, Dimensionals, Copper EP

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming?

Well, that was a bit of an unplanned hiatus but I'm finally back in the ol' craft cave again.  I can't promise I'm going to post 5-6 days a week like I was before, but I'm going to get my stamp on as often as I can (especially before Baby Sodapop arrives).

I have been extremely remiss in sending out baby thank you cards so my first foray back in my stamping space was to make a stack of these:

Missy is super proud that they're green and yellow (Baylor colors).  Green is my favorite color, and kinda seems like the "theme" of what we've put on a registry--if there's an option to get an item in green, that's the one I go for.  My next trick will be to actually get these written in and sent out.

Not real thrilled with the picture, but the little point-and-shoot camera that I've been using for yeeeeears is finally giving up the ghost so I took this one on my iPhone.  Technically the phone camera is supposed to be "better" than our old camera, but this pic just didn't turn out that great, I don't know.  Maybe I'll have to find a different place to photograph my projects with the phone.

Anyway, I've got dogs to walk, a gym to hit, and dishes to do.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  One Big Meaning, Made with Love
Ink:  Wild Wasabi, So Saffron
Paper:  Wild Wasabi, Thick Whisper White, So Saffron DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits, Dimensionals